Marienne Beaumont - Journals
Marienne Beaumont - Journals Crema 11-12 419 M.41 (Journal Entry 1 - Solo Session 1) As I strive forward against the all-consuming light that wreaths my head in starkest of desiresi]—but no. let us not dwell, the way we have always dwelt upon such things. That I am climbing, there can be no doubt. I do not look down. I will not see the fall, only the footholds that yawn above my head. The heir to a noble house with a third of a monopoly on the industry that takes away the refuse of the towers ii, that holds the very crumbling spires together; a high-ranking officer, no less, a respectable figure who stands to inherit great wealth and power. This is the toy that has fallen into my hands. And not a moment too late, I fear; the very iron walls of this place begin to crumble and to decay with the onslaught of future change. How better to prepare, then, than with alliances? Dalliances are the ficklest of feral beasts; alliances built on law and religion are the corpse-cement that holds society itself together. Without these distasteful unions of greed and mutual frustration, the nobility would simply crumble away to dust. We need these things; we thrive upon the special kind of misery that our privileged manouverings bring us. So then, the first scaled peak of my ascent. He is Roshan of House Thrace—or, more properly, House Thracete. He is the legitimate half-brother of that delightfully uppity scamp bastard Zel. He cuts the figure of a general; he is used to commanding men. He will be no match for me. His father, Abadid, was not a match for me, though I must admit that the psychotropic drugs he was on did nothing to hinder me—well. I should start from the beginning. Zel, the cad, invited me as his escort to the ceremonial smoking of his recently deceased grandfather. What was I to do, say no to proper society? Even in the watchful custody of an eccentric, debauched bastard, a social event retains its own true form and function. I went to meet the family proper, to ingratiate myself, at least, perhaps even become known. Throne knows that I hoped to distance myself from the infuriating prospect that I may be considered a candidate for betrothal with base, maddeningly powerless Zel; I was uncomfortable to be seen as a bastard’s escort by such a powerful family, but how else was I to edge my way into the cracks of society, cut off from my family’s connections as I am? The whole matter was resolutely absurd. I met the half-brothers—my general, and a young firebrand in the process of psychically equipping himself for the wonders of the front lines—as much of the front lines as a highborn Fusilier sees, at any rate. I met their charming escorts: an entirely absent, ennui-drenched young lady of a powerful merchant house, and a mousy little historian from a sub-branch of House Thracete proper. And I met the patriarch of the family, a cunning old thing named Abadid who explained the emotional intensity of the Thracete mourning ritual, and the association of masculinity with tears and expressions of grief. An emotionally raw approach, one of the easiest to manipulate. As though the situation itself hadn’t been handed to me on a silver platter already, the mourning ritual itself consisted of smoking the embalmed remains of the deceased with a measure of a psychedelic plant. The poor creatures, in their desperation to be emotionally in-touch with their dead, leave themselves open to every sort of mental influence. If I weren’t here trying to join and empower them, I think I may have been capable of wiping the house from future existence in that one night alone. That House Thrace’s enemies have not made use of these rituals is a mystery to me. They puffed at the fumes of their dead, ignoring the ash in favor of the vapours, and became quite weepy and thoughtful. Then the immediate family—which is to say, Abadid and his sons, Zel included—retired to their private quarters so as to write poetry for the deceased in solitude. It was all rather quaint and mystical. The other two rather unnoteworthy escorts and I were left to our own devices in a large archive that primarily contained documents describing the history of House Thracete and its emigration from another planet several centuries ago. Interesting though it may have been, I focused myself to other tasks. As Abadid left the room with his sons, I marked him, and clung to his mind, riding behind his eyes and in his deepest consciousness. I slipped from the library and traced the thread that his mind left for me iii]. I was accosted in the halls, but I talked my way out of it—I spoke so glibly that I cannot even recall, at this time, what I said. I slipped between the cracks in the floorboards, and drifted like a mote into the chamber of the reeling poet, the bereaved son, the concerned father— I came to Abadid as an angel of the God Emperor of Mankind. I’m sure that the man understands that the true Angels of the Imperium wear armor that dwarfs most land vehicles, but the psychedelic, the unshuttered grief, and the gentle probing of my mind against his own convinced him that I, too, must be divine. I told him that his family was blessed, and that his oldest son had been chosen for great things—for union to a divinity. I explained that Marienne was my early incarnation, and that this shell must be wedded to Roshan for divine order to proceed smoothly—that it would make House Thrace important. House Thrace wants so badly to be important that it simply cannot stop writing its own history, even after all history of note has long passed. The man was putty. He did express a touching concern for the emotional well-being of his perpetually inebriated bastard, but I quickly soothed his fears into manageable swellings. I was to be wed to the heir. I slipped back into the archives in order to give myself a concrete alibi for my whereabouts during the period of seclusion—I had hardly been gone for any time at all—and sought out the Thracete mouse. The dear thing was supposedly engaged to my Roshan, and I allowed her her illusions. I learned an awful lot about the migrant history of House Thracete, and the tortured longing with which they remember their terribly exotic home planet. The nostalgic grief that surrounds each and every true-blooded Thracete is terribly charming. All the same, it wouldn’t do to allow the fine specimen of nobility that is Roshan to muddy his impeccable genetic potential by reproducing with a rather unremarkable girl of a bloodline undoubtedly further tangled with his own than is practical, and so I considered that I may actually be doing my civic duty for the Imperium in this case, which is not a thing I often strive to do, despite my line of work. The entire family was, of course, utterly shocked when Abadid announced his intention of betrothing me to his heir. Not least of all shocked were Zel, and, in pretense, myself; I put up a front of feeling immediately faint, and Zel went through at least five of the eight stages of rage iv] very quietly behind his eyes. But Abadid was grave, and convinced of the holiness of his directive. I slunk back to the Diskitarium Invisibilis with the help of Zel’s palanquin. He was rather moody with me, and did not understand why it was that I was being taken from him to give to his legitimate brother. I assured him that I myself had no notion, and that, furthermore, I intended to help him through my new position; ideally, he now sees me as even more of an asset, though I can’t say I blame him for wanting to be free of his family’s influence. I shall do what I can for this family. They are quaint, but not entirely unmouldable. I have the capability to shape their future, and now I shall, for they appear to be a fitting conduit for my needs. This place shall be theirs, and they shall be wholly mine. ---- i] Kuebler, Antrius. Hymns of the Small. 41,174. Vol 14 pp.32. “Let mind and body strive through all-consuming light That wreaths the head in starkest desire’s might— Take up, feeble legions, ‘gainst Mankind’s night!” ii] Meningus, Teloric. An Assay upon the Deplorable Living Conditions of the Common Scintillan. 41,517. Vol 3 pp. 657. “And the refuse of the towers crumples in heaps to the pits below, and the corpses decay into the foundation as sediment and binder.” One of Meningus’ more poetic bits of condemnatory proselytization. I think, though, that it is apt here. What held Hive Sibellus up in the past continues to do so today, in more ways than one. iii] I am here reminded of the old Terran tale in which a girl leads a conquering hero from an impossible labyrinth by giving him a string to follow back. I have never been able to obtain the original details, but the model of the story was commonly repeated in the literature of the Precommon Era of Scintilla, which lasted roughly between 38,530 and 39,010, and focused heavily on thematics of redemption through love and death. iv] Gregorius, Callaus. Principals in Psychoelectrics: Common Rage, Battle Rage, and the Rage of Centuries in the Human Mind. ''42,238. Vol 7 pp. 456-572. In this section of his work, Gregorious outlines the distinctive though often hopelessly convoluted psychological processes which humans have developed to foster and cope with rage after psychological development through millenia of upheaval. Crema 13 419 M.41 (Journal 2 - Session 6) Today was—well—how did that Scarian wit Threnous put it—“can a Felidae truly be blended to cream without some entropic discharge?1] I suppose I should begin from the start. I am not used to keeping a diary—secrets, secrets—but my psychoelectrician always recommended that I write down my dreams, and I suppose later is better than never, despite my history of neglect. I aim always to be thorough, and I have been having much difficulty in distinguishing my waking reality from my dreams, so it is best to simply write it all down. So, then, from the beginning. Today I woke in my room without my covers. This happens rather regularly, as I have always had the most violent paralysis during REM sleep, while my psyche whirls about my body physically—evidence, perhaps, of a latent telekinesis that I have never been able to consciously access. Karon, the blessed fool, has accustomed himself to it, on the occasions he chooses to stay in my room. I have woken to him covering me, almost lovingly, with the blanket, an exhaustion about his eye-disks. He tells me that he blows lho-smoke into my face to quiet my mind, when I wake him. Darling idiot. Karon was not here this morning. Well and good, for I never feel dignified upon waking, and his mechanical facial features lend him a sense of always being perfectly put together regardless of the state of his ostentatious hair. This sense of aesthetic inferiority upon waking irks me to no end, and I typically spend then day feeling rather tarnished. “For though the flesh is weak, the mind remains pristine” 2]—Ha. We all know what happens to the politician lacking glitter. I rose to the glory of a sun never seen in the Crematorium, to the trumpeting of an angelic chorus: “''Vogel des Imperiums, Ruhe auf atemlos Berge”3], shrilled in the eerie intervals of a servitor quire. The sun faded along with the music, and I knew I must have risen still dreaming. There, a differentiation; I can tell that I was dreaming, unless this vision be prophetic. Psychologically reflective, most likely. Perhaps I shall make this cherubim’s song my motto for the day. So rudely was I summoned to Sergeant Arbitrator Magdala’s office this morning that there was little help for a bit more sarcasm and reticence about my demeanour than I would have otherwise wished to present. Despite the sanctity I awoke with, I was unable to transcend, a frustrating divergence from my manifested hopes this morn. Each slip I make reminds me of the unnamable doom that hastens ever forth; therefore it was with fear in my heart that we flew for Slagersfeld Spire, the venerable Scintillan pinnacle of my childhood. Evidently, something was amiss with the Wall of Tears, that desperate old monument to the antique foundations of our crumbling spire, rebuilt so many hundreds of times that naught but a single scrap of stone, eternally preserved in transparent plasteel in a preservative glucogon-group solution, remains from the original. Reports were highly variable on a subjective perceptual (which is to say anecdotal) level, suggesting the intensely mind-dependent sensory interpretation associated with Warp energy. When we got there, the wall appeared to bubble with tumorous flesh, issuing forth homonculoids of plaster. These abominations (to use the cliché) were perpetually sniped down by personnel stationed in nearby buildings, on account of their (the plaster beings’) having previously rampaged and killed everyone in the town that the presiding Interrogator, Callidon, had not gotten her hands on previously. Thenceforth I mystified her—“the mind of a child into a spiraling void”4]—with small wonders and ethos, so that she came to trust we inquisitorial miscreants. Evidently the Diskitarium Invisibilis is not the reigning inquisitorial force in the Crematorium. Somehow, this does not surprise me. After obtaining Callidon’s harried trust and cooperation, and left her to conduct our investigation of the surrounding area. After many hours of working through bloody smears of plaster, we located a building that glowed with a soft blue light, and runes appeared to me to be inscribed in the edifice, though no one else made note of them. Nevertheless, they seemed content to trust in my supernormal senses, and so we traipsed in, all un-knowing. Through the doorway, I could see—there was a chasm, and below, a pit roaring with otherworldly flame, afloat an ocean—but, again, it was just a hab, a dingy, ill-kept “monument to human efficiency and human despair”5], with a broken, very nearly altogether absent, staircase leading to the lower levels. In we ventured, and rappelled down into that void. As we descended, I became aware of a sound much like the lapping of waves on the shore of a lake, or a calm sea. But it was only a hallway. We stumbled on, and I felt plaster hands grasp me, into the walls of the void. Void, void—well, Keradoc shot the wall-dweller. No need for explanations there. And the door—the door wouldn’t hold still. It simply continued to tantalize us, seeming nearer for a moment, then darting maddeningly into the distance. So, I pried. I tried to squeeze open the cracks in the walls with the cracks in my mind—in short, I fell in. I found myself at the bottom of a great, oppressive ocean, utterly paralyzed. Never before have I felt so utterly mastered. What being was this, which radiated such sickly blue energy, that could squeeze the breath from my core reflexively, without a thought? I could feel its immense power, the delicious scent of it, and a ravening hunger awoke within me. I stretched my claws toward the surface, and by sheer power of will I ripped out of that darkness and emerged, as if through the plaster, onto the pavement. I spat out that the being that we were dealing with was immensely powerful, not that knowing that would save us, should push come to shove. The door stopped before us, beckoning us inside. I thought we might leave—but there was an ocean blocking the opposite path. Thankfully, no one tried to swim. We turned toward the door. The door blew open to show, before us, a regicide board. The vat-grown soldier stepped through first, and became a pawn. In apprehension, I stepped in behind him, and felt my form change to glass. I took my place beside him on the squares of the board. The others must not have perceived this—perhaps I was dreaming, perhaps merely psychically sensitive—and they stepped in readily behind, once the false man and I proved that entry was not equivalent to death. Before us stood a being radiant with shifting blue light, glorious in his aura of tainted power. Feathers formed themselves from the lines of the regicide board, and inserted themselves into his back, so as to give him wings, angelic or daemonic. He was Apollyon 6], Bromious 7], Dolios8], and Aidas 9], reaching through and beyond the power that each of these archaic deities represented. What allure could a healer such as Paul hold beside this creature of raw caustic energy, this thing that held within its chest craters and smoking holes where once stood proud Imperial spires. Oh, humanity! How wretched you stand in the face of true might, weakened beyond capacity for reprisal.10] I could not bear the feeling that soon, we would engage in armed conflict with this asymmetrical paragon. It was inevitable; what is a desperate young acolyte cell to do when faced with such glory but try as they might to overcome it? But surely we would be crushed by the oppressive power that it radiated. Karon could not bear it, and passed into unconsciousness. All the better for him; kinder that he should sleep through the following. Much to my relief, it stepped forward and offered a placating gesture. We had freed it from imprisonment by opening the door; it wanted to do us a favor. Its name is Yemen-Ba’al. Yemen-Ba’al, Prince of Daemons. How incredibly old this being must be, how much power beneath that false skin—! I did what I could to suppress the yearning, the pseudo-sexual power-lust that threatened to leak out of my pores, but I could not hold it back. I stepped forward and kneeled in obeisance to the ancient daemon. “My Lord,” I said, before I could stop myself. “Have you a bride?” It smiled at me. Oh, how it smiled. I could feel the energy behind the facsimile of a face twisting my small intestine into loops. I wanted to vomit, cry, copulate—how can I describe the feeling of being overcome by a power beyond comprehension? All human expressions are wrong. I wanted to tear off my skin and ascend as dust. He stepped forward as if to take my hand, but before we could properly introduce ourselves to one another, the fool with the mile-long gun decided that this would be an excellent time to put a bullet through this Lord’s dubiously corporeal head. The straw-man followed suit, and soon enough they had annoyed him to the point of insisting that he must take his leave. I was furious—such appalling rudeness from my cell!—but my mask of porcelain held. Damn them all, they have no conception of what I’ve tasted! I let them think I’d forgotten, that I had not been awake or in control when I offered myself to the Daemon Prince. But I took one of the feathers that fell from his back. For laboratory analysis, I insisted. I would not talk to Karon when I returned. He would not understand. Perhaps they ate it, or perhaps I will soon be answering for grand heresies. I have no way of knowing. I must find him soon. He seemed receptive to my advances, and perhaps he would be willing to grant me some power for a steady anchor in this dimension. What is a bride for, after all? I seek a union of the unholiest, most damning sort—if damnation be real. But that power, that energy! To feel it course through me, at my command… a consummation might destroy me, but it might also make me into a being beyond death. What is a soul, compared to that? ---- 1] Threnous, Apollius. Treatyse upon Impyrial Expantion.Vol 23, pp741. 30,879, Eustis Majoris, Scarus Sector. In this the most seminal of his works, Threnous satirizes the foreign policy of the Empire of Mankind. This is evident in the title alone, through the author’s use of archaic 20,000-era spelling. 2] Mentarium, Thaekla. On Electrical Impulse in the Arcane Sciences. Vol 7, pp 432. Belacane, Calixis Sector. This work of the influential and controversial Belacanian Tech-scholar—and, as some say, heretech—has spawned numerous fringe factions of Omnissianism. 3] Tectories, Josephus. Cannonical Hymn of the Battle Angels of our Emperor Above Men. Circa 10,000. Holy Terra. “Bird of the Imperium, perch atop breathless peaks.” In this the very pinnacle of the Cannonical era of hymnal authoriship, Tectories, a name studied in nearly every universe, exhorts the Space Marines of the Emperor on to celestial ascendance. 4] Corsterphine, Dominus. Material Mind: the Science of Mental Control Mechanisms. 41,237. Vol 2 pp. 27. Though a bit out of date in terms of psychical technique, the ideas espoused in this textual manual relating to telepathical control are quite applicable, even in the modern era of psychic bonding. This quotation describes the author’s metaphorical perceptions of the effects of psychic control on the unprepared. 5] Meningus, Teloric. An Assay upon the Deplorable Living Conditions of the Common Scintillan. 41,517. Vol 1 pp. 23. This vivacious attack upon the class divides within the Scintillan hive community was well-received within academia. The typical response of the scholarly noble is, to this day, a learnedly-helpless shrug and a wheedling, “but what can be done about it now? The hives are already built.” Somehow, this is still a societally valid response. 6] A God known to the ancient Terrans and written about in esoteric texts stored in rather forbidden data vaults. Apollyon was often depicted wreathed in light, and may inform contemporary interpretations and imagery of Saint Paul. 7] Of Apollyon’s set of Terran gods—His brother, in fact—often portrayed as his opposite or double. Associated with fertility and destruction. 8] Another brother of Apollyon and Bromious; a world-flitting psychopomp, a messenger with a foot in each world. 9] Uncle to the above three gods; brooding lord of whatever this sect of fool Terrans took for a grim wasteland of an afterlife. 10] “Oh, humanity! How resilient you stand in the face of true might, strong in capacity of reprisal.” Kuebler, Antrius. Hymns to the Mighty. 41,103. Vol 3 pp. 7. Some of the best-loved hymnal material in Scintillan temples. Every child would know the refrain. Crema 14 419 M.41 (Journal 3- Solo Session 2) Session: Solo 2 (Post-Session 6) I am locked in a spiral. Downwards we flow. By daybreak, will I be dust? Does a consummation of plaster and flesh cause— Will there be irreparable wounds? I think that the wounding has been done. We were married. By a priest, in a church— I had no ring to give. I was given the blessing of a brand. I took for myself a band of the devout. I shall give them all as dowry. The tide shifts. I am alone. The tide shifts. I am alone. Karon wants to know if we Yemen-Ba’al is a man and more than a man Can still see each other, when a plaster man of infinite reach I’m married. Despair, ye mighty, for none I’ve told him that I want to— Shall be spared the Scourging Will I be able to touch flesh, The Burning Or, for that matter, metal, The Change that sweeps away Once I am a being of thought? Centuries of untroubled rest. I am unable to wrest my thoughts from the duality of my being. In such a being, there exist side by side a state of ultimate elation and despair A great rending of freedom—of the soul, the spirit, unchained— From that within that must—above all—feed upon strength So as to charge, as a parasite, beyond the reaches of civilization. No great freedom have I, then, in any case For Man spurns to give that which he cannot perceive— How, then, should I be expected to sleep untroubled? How could I be so cruelly given life and perception And none of the power to make them worth my while? I shall take from this bondage the power that is my freedom. This Brand burns Upon my chest, I Can perceive a sickly blue Glow that emanates from the Transfixing, nauseating figure there etched. Karon says that looking at the wound Makes him sick to his stomach. He asked me so Casually, What it was that I might be playing with. I had no answer for him. Forgive me. I write here as one in a trance; I can barely contain the shaking of my hand. My hand is not my own—my entire self, given up, not my own any longer. Marriage to a man is one thing; a man can be deceived so very easily. One does not lightly attempt to deceive a daemon prince. I think that I am more afraid than I know how to admit. He showed up to glamour the leader of the Cult of the Ashen Rebirth into playing along with my schemes—he gave the man a myocardial infarction, and took it away simply to show me that he could—and so that I would owe him a favor. I owe my second husband, Yemen-Ba’al the Daemon Prince of Tzeentch, a favor. There is no simple escape from the gravity of the thing. In lucid moments— But I am now a tainted polygamist. How do I describe the power that courses through my veins? I wish to let it loose—to let it out into the world— I know the world now, and how to shape it to my will. I know my will—I know its shape. I have never wanted anything but to better myself. And oh, how much better I am now! Don’t you see it? How the smoke curls off my skin in soft ribbons— And how, when I walk, I give off clouds of plaster dust that light my way? I can see the smoke and the dust. I can see nothing else. Yemen-Ba’al took my eyes—how, I do not know, but he took them from me— And left me with cracked orbs and senses that I cannot explain. Years of training would not have taught me the power that that one searing bite Left as an afterimage in my consciousness— I will Not explain To you how it is that Though my eyes are cracked And pour forth naught but dust, I can Still see The world before me—I cannot explain This, I know not how it came To pass. I have walked Scorched deserts, I have— I have myself scorched the ground. I have no conception of what happens next. I have more power than I properly know what to do with—I always assumed it would be simple, when the time came, to take what is mine, but this favor barter system makes me incredibly nervous, more than a little apprehensive to use the real potential behind the leverage of a daemon. Perhaps the power he gave me through his kiss will be enough to sustain me—do I need to fight off legions, yet? Perhaps now I can alone face off legions—though it is ever desirable to have a union of the highest order to fall back into, should my plans for the corporeal world prove beyond my locus of control. I know now That my face is Cracking.